After selling Netscape for $700 million, former president and CEO Jim Barksdale and his wife Sally pledged $100 million to help children in Mississippi learn to read. In a series of reforms designed largely by the state department of education and funded with the Barksdale largesse, eleven professors were hired to reform the training of reading teachers at Mississippi's eight state universities, and grants were also made to 73 of the state's lowest-performing schools to improve reading instruction. Jim and Sally Barksdale viewed the contribution as an investment, not a gift, and told the state superintendent that they'd take their money elsewhere if the venture was not successful. Two years later, while it is too soon for definitive results, the Barksdales are celebrating small victories while reflecting on the challenges of creating change in the public school system. "I was surprised at the difficulty of implementation," said James' younger brother Claiborne, who now runs the Barksdale Reading Institute. "Jim, Sally and I have come to realize what complicated organisms schools are and how difficult they are to change." One principal of a school where the reform eventually took hold explained, "Before, the idea was anything goes. ... You could say that reading teachers were self-employed." The principal said she had to spend much of the first year persuading teachers, particularly veterans, of the program's value. In other schools, reform never gained traction; two schools have been dropped from the program for failing to implement changes, many teachers still balk at the prescriptive instruction required by the Institute, and professors at ed schools have been particularly resistant, Claiborne Barksdale said. Still, some schools that have implemented the program have watched individual students soar after teachers began diagnosing their reading deficiencies, tailoring reading instruction accordingly, and regularly assessing progress. All eagerly await the results from Mississippi's statewide testing program next year. For details see "Words valued at $100 million," by Mike Bowler, The Baltimore Sun, June 9, 2002. (available for a fee at http://www.sunspot.net). The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation took a close look at different approaches to education philanthropy-including the Barksdales' efforts-and concluded that adding resources to a school system won't do much good unless there are also strong incentives in place for that system to change. For more see Making it Count: A Guide to High-Impact Education Philanthropy (September 2001), available at http://www.edexcellence.net/detail/news.cfm?news_id=39.
